Croatia Toughens Penalties for Domestic and Sexual Violence

The Croatian government sent a package of laws to parliament on Thursday, toughening the penalties for sexual violence.

Under the proposals, punishments will become harsher for many criminal acts such as domestic violence, female genital mutilation, personal injury (to a close person), grievous and particularly grievous bodily harm to a close person and violation of children's rights.

The minimum jail sentence for domestic violence will now be one year, up from three months currently. Depending on the severity of the offence, rape convictions will now range from at least one to ten years.

Paula Zore, from the campaigning initiative "Justice for girls" told BIRN that the organisation welcomed the decision as the result of the efforts of women rights groups and initiatives. "What is still important is that these changes should now be implemented in a good way," Zore said.

The proposed changes also make "intercourse without consent" a rape crime. Many women's rights groups and international human rights organisations, including Amnesty International in its latest report, said Croatia's current legislation did not effectively criminalise rape.

The criminal code currently distinguishes between two separate offences - rape and "sexual intercourse without consent".

In a report titled "Croatia: Existing Laws are Failing Victims of Domestic Violence", published on October 17, Amnesty said this was a bad practice.

"The introduction of a separate offence has had a highly detrimental impact on the prosecution of rape, with most cases of marital rape and other cases of rape qualified and prosecuted as 'sexual intercourse without consent' and the perpetrators sentenced to the minimum penalties of six months or less," the report said.